1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for evaluating deceleration running of a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Drivers repeatedly switch between acceleration and deceleration during running of vehicles. Even when vehicles run at a substantially constant speed, the constant speed is maintained by repeating acceleration and deceleration of the vehicle in a technical sense.
When vehicles decelerate during running, it is not necessary to supply driving force to the vehicles. If the driving force to the vehicles is cut off by cutting the energy supply to engines, it is possible to save the energy consumption of the vehicles. A conventional technology for performing energy saving control to reduce energy consumption in a deceleration state of vehicles is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H08-290130.
In the conventional technology, it is possible to perform control to reduce energy consumption; however, the conventional technology does not provide a benchmark indicating how much energy saving has been achieved. Therefore, drivers have no chance to know how much energy consumption reduction they have achieved due to their driving style including current acceleration and deceleration of their vehicles. Consequently, the drivers are not able to make efforts to change their driving style to achieve further energy consumption reduction.